As a fledgling site, sometimes there’s confusion as to what the “mission statement” is, and ours is not the news cycle.  Mostly, I hope that ours is the funny, but sometimes I can’t bring the funny but still feel compelled to say something. The announcement of Terrence Howard’s falling out with Marvel Studios is one of those compelling moments… it just seems like Marvel is hellbent on fucking with the next Iron Man.

Don Cheadle is a good actor, and a cool actor, yes.  But he simply does not carry the physical presense of Howard.  They are two different men, with different appeals– and I simply do not see Cheadle as James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes / War Machine.  Feel free to go ballistic on why he’d be better, but I can’t see it at a passing glance.  So, I offer four too-late alternatives, had I known the biggest pimp in movies was going to get axed.

1) Sticky Fingaz / Kirk Jones
First, it should be noted that Sticky is not only used to going by two separate identities, he already has superhero experience in the Marvel Universe.  Perhaps that’s more of a disqualifier, yet the fact remains that Sticky has given intense performances, and this is a role where his natural rapper cool could be well coupled with the willingness to butt heads with Tony Stark.

2) Richard T. Jones
If money’s been an issue, maybe stepping back a little wouldn’t hurt.  I mean, Maggie Gyllenhaal doesn’t have the mainstream draw that Katie Holmes had prior to TomKat, but she seemed to work out just fine for The Dark Knight.  With the new Iron Man, we need to be most concerned with who our “Joker” is… which means we can pull a fast one in the best friend slot.  I can think of few better fast ones that Richard T. Jones.  For those of you who haven’t been catching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (which apparently is a lot of you), Jones’ role as the former FBI agent picking up the pieces is a regularly engaging one.  The idea of an aching Downey Jr. being talked off his alcoholic cliff by Jones is one that I personally relish.  That, and he has all that experience working with robots.

3) Chris “Ludacris” Bridges
In case you hadn’t noticed, Chris Bridges can act.  It shocked me too.  While he’s a half-decade younger than everyone else on this list, I see no reason why that wouldn’t be a major selling point– he can carry himself as mature enough for the role, while still being young enough to do the necessary stunt work when the inevitable War Machine spin-off occurs years down the line.

4) Jamie Foxx
With a new co-starring flick opposite Downey Jr. dropping into our laps soon, I don’t see how this name didn’t end up at least circulating.  And why shouldn’t it?  Jamie Foxx is one capable fuckin’ actor– one of the few black actors in the proper age range who can surpass both Howard and Cheadle in the awards catergory, and he has a stronger frame than Cheadle.  How much fun would it have been to see Foxx and Downey Jr. hamming it up?  A lot, dammit.

Utterly pointless speculation aside, I’m really, REALLY bummed about this.  Not that I don’t think Cheadle doesn’t have it in him to nail it… just that Terrence Howard already had, and could have continued to.  Guess we’ll never get that “next time”.